Shattered
by thegaygumballmachine
Summary: "She refused to be an instigator. Already, Galina imagined herself on shaky ground. Dmitri’s agenda was not her own, and though she sympathized with him he would never be able to ask her to join his cause. At least, not in a way that caused her any personal risk." Communist Russia has always interested me, so that's partially where this came from. Backstory for Red.


_Since I don't speak a Russian well enough to write it fluently, speech in () is assumed not to be English._

Galina had always been an exceptionally quiet girl. She kept her head down and did her work, as her father had always taught her. All through school, she'd been teased about it - called a nerd.

Never, though, did she mind.

Only a few people's opinions had ever mattered to Galina; her parents' and Dmitri's. Since they were children, they'd lived near each other, and they did their work together in class often.

He didn't talk much, either.

They'd always been close. Dmitri never looked at her with pity because she was 'antisocial.' He understood that all she wanted was to be independent. He wanted that for her.

They were judged in teenage years - many of the popular girls asked her why she dated him. She ignored them, as she always had, not even bothering to correct them. It was close enough to the truth that she didn't care. Then again, gossip had never bothered her. She did what the adult in the room told her to, and made it through the day without trouble.

Her graduation was a quiet affair - she proved she knew how to handle herself in all skills they needed from her and she was licensed to go to work. Her father had bought her a chocolate.

She missed him, now.

That first day at the factory had been difficult for her and Dimitri. He felt her potential was squandered there. She felt he was too outspoken.

"(You're meant for so much more, Galina,)" he'd said.

"(And how would you know,)" she'd replied, with a tinge of sadness.

In Russia, you did as they told you, and that was all there was to it. She'd never known differently.

But he wanted more.

He always had.

Too ambitious for his own good, that boy.

Days turned into weeks, and then into months, a cycle of the same over and over again. You had a job, you did it, you went home with only a bit more money than you'd begun with. They said it was communism.

Things began to lose color.

 _Keep your hair pinned. Don't ask questions. Trust the government._

And she did - she was a model citizen on paper. Galina always had yielded to authority. Now that she was old enough to work, the person she reported to had merely changed. She'd learned the regulation twist they required her to use, becoming an expert at hiding the mass of ginger that had always framed her face. She'd remembered how to keep her mouth shut, finding ways to ask her questions as statements. She pretended to believe the televisions.

Her father had always told her - don't piss them off and you'll be fine.

The sky was a deep gray, probably from a combination of natural and manmade clouds. Hundreds, perhaps even thousands, rushed along the length of a rusting steel bridge that separated the town from the factory district. The sea of nondescript, solid-colored uniforms mirrored the clouds in color and in movement. It was a windy sort of day, and if one looked hard enough they could watch the individual puffs move through the sky.

These were the sorts of things Galina noticed every day. All those around her were rightly busied with finding their way to work, and really she should be too, but she knew she would make it. There was no need for her to be early, and her colleagues missed so much in a day.

Most of them did their jobs without so much as a second glance at the world around them, and even though Galina did much the same Dmitri had taught her to allow the crowd to flow around her sometimes, rather than being a part of it. If one didn't stop to think every once in awhile about what exactly they were doing, it could lead to disastrous consequences.

For example: here she was, about to start her shift in a factory plant. Heaven only knew what that was doing to the atmosphere, to the air they breathed… to their very lives. What were they doing to future generations by creating a little extra power for themselves now?

She didn't know. She'd never asked. Even if she had, she was sure her teachers would never have answered her.

The television told her it would be fine.

She pretended to trust it.

 _They pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work._

When, exactly, his ideals had featured in her own, Galina didn't know, but she found she agreed with Dmitri. Something here was wrong, though she couldn't figure what it was.

"(Card.)"

It was automatic, mechanical, how she acted in these moments. Her mind didn't need to remain there. She was just fulfilling a task as she'd always done.

 _Don't speak. Give them your papers. Wait for a stamp._

She refused to be an instigator. Already, Galina imagined herself on shaky ground. Dmitri's agenda was not her own, and though she sympathized with him he would never be able to ask her to join his cause. At least, not in a way that caused her any personal risk.

"(Next, please.)"

All she was to them was a number. There was such talk of equal pay, of jobs according to abilities.

Communism, she thought, was bullshit.

She was Employee #7853, and that was all they knew of her. She packaged the goods. It wasn't as if you needed a particular skill for that.

 _They pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work._

Day after day, she sat at the stool until her back ached, her fingers going through the same motions for hours on end with minimal breaks. Because someone had to do it.

Because she pretended to be easily swayed, they placed her with the rest of the simple ones. But Galina was nothing if not complex. She always had to know more - to learn more.

This was not what made a life; it was what she had and she would learn to survive on it. She had to. There was no other choice.

And then he told her that he was going to America.

She always walked home from work, as did many, but she'd worked out a route separate from most others. Galina liked to walk in the quiet. Nature was something she tried to remain knowledgeable of, though it continued to grow difficult. Every day, she passed a bench which she had grown to regard as hers; often, she would sit there for no reason other than to watch the world go by. Today, Dmitri occupied it, waiting for her, and as she came upon him he shot up.

"(I have such news,)" he told her. She sat.

It wasn't like her to ask - he was going to have to speak. She laced her fingers over crossed legs, watching the fabric of her skirt as it fluttered in the wind.

He told her excitedly of another country, one where they could be free from an oppression she only knew a fraction of. He painted a picture of beauty and equality, of jobs they could choose for themselves.

"(Come with me, Galina,)" he said, and she was unbelievably tempted. None in her position wouldn't be. But her life was here - as wretched as it was, it had stability. A stability she would never find in America, she was convinced. She knew who she was here. If the rules were stripped away, she wasn't sure what she'd become.

None of this would find its way into the conversation, nor was she eloquent enough to express it in a way he would understand, so instead she asked her next question.

"(How?)"

He launched into an explanation of marriage licenses, of how they could immigrate together for free if they married, and she couldn't even begin to comprehend it. Not because she didn't understand the concept - Dmitri was simply like a brother to her. She never would've thought they would be romantic.

"(We don't have to do… the rest of it,)" he made sure she knew. It didn't provide much comfort if everyone they met would think they were.

Still, it was an offer that was hard to resist.

"(I will think about it,)" she said. No more of a commitment than that was possible where she stood. It was an adjustment, likely the largest she would make in her life, if she did go. She had a way to do things that had been branded into her since she could walk, and America seemed to fly in the face of all of it.

Would it be worth that?

Would _anything_ be worth that?

She supposed, the question was if she truly believed this was the correct way to live. If she did, remaining here would be the obvious choice. But if there was even a sliver of doubt in her mind… if it wasn't unquestionably true that this was how she was meant to be, then the idea was not without merit.

"(That is all I ask,)" Dmitri acceded, and they began to walk. He allowed her the silence, as he always did, putting his wishes after hers, knowing that especially today she required nothing extra to focus on.

She had enough going on in her head as it was.

What was left for her here? A job she hated, a home that barely fit her, a life that may as well have been a clone's…

Father would have told her to jump in headfirst.

She didn't sleep at all that night.

OIoOoIO

It did seem painfully clear, the path she should take now, following the next day's work. She was meant for more than this. Galina was only doing it to begin with because of a skewed perception of her own capabilities. She wasn't like them, all those popular girls from school who she still sat with now. She had potential. She should be able to choose what she wanted to do with her life.

"(I will go with you,)" she told him. There was really no choice, none that was good. It was either take steps to change herself this way, or continue to do the same thing every day and live an unsatisfied life. Galina had never been right for the old ways.

He very nearly kissed her that day, but she would never know it.

In America, he could show her how he felt without fear. He would be just as free as she, able to live without chains of a government that wanted power more than what was right for the people.

Galina had always been a confusing subject for Dmitri. He'd never been able to explain exactly what she was in regards to him, but had grown recently to understand what he'd wanted her to be. She would never want it here, but she might when the rules were gone. It was one of the reasons he'd invited her - he couldn't see himself marrying another, even for this purpose.

They were so similar, and yet so different.

She was afraid of them. He could tell. It was true that she was right to be, at least slightly so, but it clouded her ideals and her judgements sometimes. Like, for instance, now. Galina, he suspected, didn't know if she wanted to leave behind everything she'd ever learned.

She didn't understand fully that everything she'd learned was designed to keep her from asking - from growing as a person. He wanted to take her away from that.

And now, she was realizing that she wanted him to.

"(When do we leave,)" she asked.

"(As soon as the papers are in order, if you're amenable.)"

Oh, she was.

There were logistics to sort out, of course. She didn't know more than a few words of English, not to mention the fact that she had no idea where to live or any American money. It would be difficult, obviously. Nothing worth doing was ever easy.

"(Thank you,)" she told him, and they both knew how many meanings it served. He'd shown her that there was something else besides this monotony. He'd given her a way out. He'd protected her through her life, though it wasn't as if she'd known it.

They were married a week later - a short ceremony, basic and quick. To all present it was obviously a wedding based on convenience. This wasn't unusual, though Galina felt a feeling of shame settle over her as she wondered what mother would have thought.

She'd always wanted a grand wedding for her daughter, something planned over long months and perfect down to the last detail. Never would they have had the money for it, but this…

She was probably rolling over in her grave.

The full point of the day was a marriage certificate - not a bonding of hearts, as mother had called it. It had always been so important to her that one married for love, and for nothing else.

But she wasn't here, was she, and there was really no other way for this to work.

 _America_.

She considered, as the vows were sealed, that she might be acting naively. Allowing Dmitri to lead her into something neither of them would be able to handle. But he'd never steered her wrong before…

When it came down to it, she trusted him with her life, and as such she would put it in his hands now.

A new world.

A new life.

A new beginning.

 _A/N: This is originally intended to be a one-shot, but depending on feedback I may add to it. Just let me know. It's marked complete for now because I think it is, but again I'm not sure. :)_


End file.
